My mother doesn’t understand why I don’t pick up the phone. She calls the house phone, leaves a long message, then successively calls each and every cell phone in the house until somebody picks up. Having finally tracked me down, this time via my son’s cell phone, she alerts me to the fact that I didn’t answer the house phone and asks if that’s the number I had disconnected. This, despite the fact that she left a message on that line and despite the fact that I’ve told her many times that I had the office line turned off.
Since the only work I’ve gotten lately—aside from poorly-paid how-to books—is writing reports for research houses, I don’t have any need to call sources or accept calls from anyone. Ergo, no need to pretend I’m actually running a business here in this asylum.
“Your cousins are going to be in St. Augustine next week,” she says. There are 63 living first and second cousins in our family. I ask her to be more specific. “Jeannie and Sam. Their grandchildren are giving them a cruise. Before the boat leaves, they’re going to spend a couple of days in St. Augustine. It would be nice of you to take them around. You know, that’s where Jeannie and Sam went on their honeymoon.”
I didn’t know. Sam and Jeannie are in their late 70s. Sam and Mom are first cousins, although Sam is a bit older. The two high school sweethearts struggled to have a family—a tale I’ve heard in excruciating detail—but were given the opportunity to adopt a sibling pair as toddlers. “You see, they prayed.” Mom always concluded the story with that admonishment. I never knew if she was trying to tell me to believe in a higher power or to warn me to be careful what you pray for. Sam, Jr. and Jean-Ann’s teen exploits were legendary in the small town of Legendre, Louisiana, including (but not limited to) using their ATVs to herd the mayor’s prized Nubian goats through the streets of the nine square block downtown. My late father pointed to them as an example of what happens when your parents are white trash with oil money. (A minor well had been drilled on their farm.) When Aunt Jeannie uttered her favorite expletive, she did it with such emphasis that one felt a pile of it had been shoveled into the room.
The last time I saw Jean-Ann was at a great-aunt’s funeral. I quickly decided she took after her mother—only with more makeup, more costume jewelry and more rhinestone studs on the jogging suit she wore to the wake. Sam, Jr.’s children by his second wife seemed to be the generation of that family that bridged the gap from societal menace to genteel professional class. By the time the girls were born, Sammy had been out of rehab for the second time and sober for 6 years. He discovered a talent for cooking, managed to get a loan for a historic house on the edge of town, married the real estate agent who sold it to him and launched a very successful restaurant. Foodies drove for miles to sample his boudin-stuffed, pan-seared quail and pecan-crusted trout over corn grits.
His wife Suzette had a special “chef’s table” set up in the kitchen for Sam and Jeannie, thus ensuring that her in-laws and her husband’s patrons never mingled. Clever woman.
Sammy’s daughters performed admirably at LSU, then one went to law school at the University of Pennsylvania and the other went to Stamford. Read: As far from family as humanly possible. They got back together in Dallas where they own a joint practice specializing in family law. Family law, of course, being a euphemism for kick-your-ex’s-ass barracuda divorce lawyers. Crystal and Cherie are very good at what they do.
Why are they now taking such an interest in Sam and Jeannie? This I can’t say. What I can say is this: Crystal and Cherie get to chew up poor bastards in the Dallas courthouse, cash mega-checks and sleep in their posh condos in Texas. I have to escort their foul-mouthed grandmother and feeble grandfather through the cobblestone streets of St. Augustine.
“Sure Mom. Just let me know when they’re getting in.” And she wonders why I don’t answer the phone.
